A weekend of camping looms

camping

I'm off to Camp Bestival with the boy this weekend on a father/son bonding weekend. I think this translates to "we didn't get enough tickets for everyone to go and wifey doesn't fancy slumming it". That's okay though, she is 4 months pregnant and it was jolly kind of her and Persil to let me go in her stead.

I have a slight degree of trepidation, mostly because the boy still only gives us about a minutes warning of when an enormous poo is coming but also because I've not really got over our weeks holiday in Norfolk and I'm off again. That sounds ungrateful doesn't it? It's not meant to at any rate, I'm sure we'll have a super time, and the uber organised Kat has already promised to bagsy us a tent pitch so we can take part in the mummy bloggers campathon. Shes great.

It's more that I'm intellectually aware of the trip but the rest of me hasn't got it's arse into gear just yet. Typically I'm not worried about packing enough towels or spare underpants or bedding, I'm worried how I'll charge my iPhone up and concerned about mobile phone reception- O2 seem to be rubbish wherever you can see greenery. We're off ere dawn has cracked tomorrow morning, and it's just occurred to me that it will probably be the longest time that the boy has gone without seeing his mummy. That's got me worried now as I remember when my parents went out for the evening when we were little (upper end of primary school) and my brother cried himself into a snotty mess after bedtime when he found out they weren't there.

Anyway since we're going in my car and it only has a tape deck, it's time to dig out some tapes for the ride. Considering I started buying CD's in about 1990 in earnest, there isn't going to be anything remotely new, which should suit the Cat Stevens loving lad down to the ground....

Post holiday fug

slightly windy

We had a fun if slightly windswept holiday in Norfolk last week but now we're back to reality and that means for me, back to work. The kids both went off to the childminder with a spring in their step and the prospect of a trip to the splash park in the air. A few quiet words were said along the lines of "I'll miss you" but that was it really.

Work started off with a trip to Oxford for a client close down meeting, which was a change as I tend to be mostly office based. This meant leaving from Paddington station but more importantly meant navigating out of Paddington on my way home. You see, I'd arrived at Paddington by taxi and hadn't realised finding the Hammersmith & City line was akin to finding the correct platform for the Hogwarts Express. The Circle and District line platforms are closed at Paddington and the Bakerloo line didn't really take me where I wanted to go. A cheerful voice over the tannoy told me that service on the Bakerloo and Hammersmith & City lines was great. I couldn't find the Hammersmith & City line. It wasn't hanging out with the other tube lines. Unsociable or what?!

There were no signs pointing to it and I sort of trudged around the station for twenty minutes forlornly until a lull in commuters revealed a coloured line on the floor that lead me the length of platform 9, up a flight of stairs, along a walk way and down to the Hammersmith & City line. Obvious! This coupled with some aggravation on the Thameslink line (improbable I know) meant I didn't get home until about 7.30 in the evening, despite leaving the client in Oxford at ten past 3.

Next time I'm driving.

Ninja Kids and the Gonad Assault

Two balls, safe from random punching

In what must be a first, I'm blogging about my balls. They hurt (again) and not because of anything pleasant.

Since he was tall enough to walk and strong enough to swing a punch, the boy has been almost demented in his desire to punch me in the balls. Perhaps it's his way of telling us he wanted to be an only child. If it is, Fifi is evidence his approach failed and philosophically perhaps he should have considered some sort of drawing or painting instead.

The most memorable ball whack came on our visit to the Chiltern Open Air Museum. It was a cool and overcast day and since we arrived there at opening time, due to a typical Fifi early start, we were the first and pretty much the only visitors in there when we were hailed by the head of the friends association. I only got as far as putting my hand out to shake his because at that point, the boy stepped out smartly from behind me, punched me hard in the balls and vanished. His vanishing wasn't exactly of Houdini standards mind, since somewhat involuntarily I decided to double up and writhe on the floor in agony. Goodness only knows what the head of the friends association thought about it all. Perhaps he was just glad his balls were unmolested.

It happened twice today too, which was both baffling, painful and sad too. We've had a great day today, paddling in the sea, running up and down the beach, digging holes, putting 2p's in 2p machines at the amusement arcade and sitting on the front eating fish and chips. Most kids would show their thanks with a cuddle or a thank you. Mine showed his love by punching me in the balls. This was a feat he repeated whilst getting ready for bed, which was all the more baffling as he was in the process of telling his Uncle about all the coins he'd saved from the clutches of the 2p machine.

So now I have aching balls again and a sense of frustration* because it's not something that the boy does all the time, or even a lot of the time but he does it often enough that it's blooming irritating. I've tried all sorts of approaches to stop him doing it and he does seem genuinely sorry afterwards, he just wont stop punching me in the balls.

*and not the usual sort of frustration involving their balls that blokes get either

Seaside alert!

The holiday weather might not be as awesome as it was last year when we had to come back home with the chicken pox but it hasn't stopped us going on the beach. True, we had to leave Titchwell a bit earlier than  I would have liked yesterday but this was due to the wind more than anything. Wifey was in serious danger of getting buried in our beach tent at one point.

Incoming! Man the anti aircraft battery!

Our favourite beach activity this year so far has been digging deep holes and filing them with sea shells. There has been additional squeaking when the odd dead crab has been found. If there are more than a couple of legs, the squeaking turns into full on screaming with some excitable running around.

We also did some kit flying but that was preceded by some of the worlds most epic kit crashing. On our honeymoon we bought a special stunt kit. The special stunt it does is lift off to about 20ft in the air, spin madly round, and then crash with an earth shuddering thump into the ground. I was optimistic I'd be able to get it working. It was unfounded, so we brought out the Buzz Lightyear kite which flew awesomely.

Still, when the wind got too much, we relocated to Hunstanton and then had a rummage round the rock pools. We also did some ace beach art, which the boy was enormously pleased with his large monster which started off as a castle, morphed into a prison and eventually became a beastie of some sort.

If your child can climb over them, you're not safe

The great thing about Hunstanton is the beach has seas defences which make perfect seats after a day small child excitement. And when that small child excitement starts at 5.28am, you need some nice sitting down and a continuous stream of hot tea.

The only downside really is that I'm in a sort of technological blackhole. O2's reception in West and North coastal Norfolk is pretty much non existent so wifey is spotting me on the rare occasions that half a bar appears completely neglecting the children and downloading a few emails or posting 30 tweets. Neither of them have shrugged their clothes off and charged into the sea in these brief moments of connectivity. Needless to say, hundreds of other people are wandering around using their phones quite happily on other networks.

Over tired

As we're on holiday I've been staying up a bit later for holiday fun*. I also did a day trip back home to go to work for the day, which has lead to the current situation wherein I am over tired. Fifi is definitely over tired. She spent most of yesterday's trip to Titchwell RSPB reserve tantruming and shouting. I'm sure there wasn't as much as a wood pigeon left in the area by the time she'd calmed down since she only calmed down when the motion of the car sent her to sleep and we'd left by that point.

So it was with unmitigated joy that I gazed blearily at the clock this morning when Fifi started her loud complaining to see it was 5.28am. And so the circle continues. Another day of holiday that we'll all wish we had earplugs with us to combat the exhausted two year old who is always up at the crack of dawn and is usually cranky by lunchtime.

Today though we have the added bonus of the boy waking up at 7 when he was up making a fuss two hours past his bedtime last night. When I said I was surprised to see him so early, he burst into tears.

Today is going to be a long, long day.

*I went down the pub at 10pm last night for a pint from the micro brewery and to read a chapter of my book. I am so rock and roll it's scary.

Working up an appetite

get your coat, you've pulled

When we're on holiday the kids tend to go a bit mad in terms of running around like loons. On occasion this might even make the the wee lass sleep in longer. Only on occasion though, it's only 9 o'clock now and she's been up for 3 hours already.

Yesterday was a day of jumping in muddy puddles. A Peppa Pig tribute day if you will but the day before saw us at the Holkham Country Show. Show was appropriate because there was a fair amount of showing off going on from both the boy and Fifi. They wanted to spend the entire time there on the bouncy castle but at £1.50 each for 5 minutes, that was never going to happen!

After a day at the country show, we strolled down from our cottage to the Jolly Sailors pub for a spot of dinner. It's got it's own microbrewery, which was recently relocated to Swaffam due to space restrictions but also has a really great menu. AND a play ground. Needless to say the boy made friends with a bigger girl. Mini Lothario!

So I was standing outside with a pint of Oyster Catcher whilst the kids ran wild. Which was great.

Memories

Even though the boy is 4 it's funny to hear what he remembers from "when I was a little boy". For instance he remembers his summer holidays from when he was two. That's pretty impressive. All day today in the car he was determined to have the small fish he had on holiday when he was little. I fancied some whitebait myself so thought he could turn his nose up at a few of mine.

The little bugger ate half the plate (as well as pizza), munching on the heads but leaving the tiniest amount of tail. What a hero. A hero with a pretty damn good menu too :)

A strange feeling of dissatisfaction

I like to think of myself as a pretty satisfied kind of chap. Whether this translates into a laid back under achiever isn't something I've ever considered.

I work hard and I believe I'm blessed- we have a nice house and I have a lovely wife and two excitable children. Time is valuable and whilst we don't live hand to mouth, money has to be watched carefully in case it tries to escape. All in all we're fairly normal. And that makes me happy.

Royal Crescent- not on google maps

Perhaps I'd had one too many mojitos last night at the Ubisoft summer games event in Shepherds Bush but as I walked back to the tube station via Royal Crescent, I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of shame and failure. These huge high ceiling'd mainsons all had curtainless bay windows which, even at 10.30pm, were full of people (mostly men, wearing braces it must be said), who were so obviously better than me.  Maybe not better human beings, although the wearing of braces may have supported my claim there, but better at this getting on and living lark. I've never believed that the accumulation of material possession is a marker of success but what if you've accumulated material possessions, are happy and don't work any harder than I do at the moment? I'd never thought of that.

 I'm not a dim bloke. Last time I did a proper accredited IQ test I scored a hundred and thirty something points. That's not blowing my own trumpet, that's me railing in frustration that I don't seem to have utilised what I've got to any decent degree.

Am I letting myself down or more importantly letting my family down? That thought has started to haunt me now.

Dinosaurs didn't exist

5 year old (who is obsessed with nature and animals) wants to know if dinosaurs are in heaven waiting for us and if not why not because it's not their fault they were vicious - it's just nature . . . 

That's the dead cute question Tara's 5 year old asked them yesterday.  The problem is, in the West the concept of heaven is pretty tied up with Christianity and believe it or not Christianity can't even decide on whether dinosaurs existed or not.

America is to blame really, or rather the problem manifested itself there historically and has begun to pollute the rest of the world. In America they have this idea called  Creation science that hasn't really progressed from Enlightenment Europe- early European scientists, from Copernicus to Galileo to Newton believed (as did almost all Christians in their time) in a literal interpretation of the Bible's account of creation. Most of them date the creation of the earth at around 4,000BC, and in the case of the infamous Bishop Ussher, 22 October 4004BC. That's fairly precise, and you would have thought he could have spent his time more beneficially ministering to his flock or something.


Dating the creation of the world 8,000 or so years ago obviously doesn't give much truck to dinosaurs and this bunch have plenty of trite pseudo science answers for why dinosaurs didn't exist:- 

Have complete skeletons been found?
Were all the bones linked together?
Or were the bones just found in one area, and then joined up later?
It is possible that the skeletons were constructed out of different animals. It is possible that the bones got bent into different shapes by the great weight of the dirt and rock above. 

Some scientists have made complete pictures of dinosaurs based on just a single bone or tooth or leg. Half of all 'dinosaurs' found are under 15 feet in length. If crocodiles grew large, skeletons could have been mistaken for dinosaurs. They could have easily used a whale bone to construct a larger dinosaur.

It's sort of easy to laugh this off as a fringe nutjob element of American Christianity but when you look at a recent Gallop poll from December 2010 and see that only 16% of Americans actually believe in proper evolution, with 40% believing the world is about 8-10,000 years old and the remaining 38% thinking God directly had a hand in evolution, you do wonder how much longer kids will be able to ask questions about dinosaurs without being shipped off to a detention centre for correctional treatment. If you want to be depressed, read the reviews for this DVD on Amazon

Fortunately we've not been as polluted with all this mumbo jumbo anti intellectual nonsense in good old Blighty. I'd probably find it difficult enough to tell our 4 year old that a normal Christian would say animals don't have souls so they wont be in heaven. Life is full enough of disappointments that this probably doesn't matter, because raising kids isn't about being right all the time is it? Besides, what if he came back with, "what about all dogs go to heaven?", I can hardly tell him that basing his life perspective on films isn't right can I?

Ferrari 458 Italia vs Vauxhall Zafira- Road Test

Recently I was a guest of Ferrari at their HQ in Maranello as part of the Shell Network of Champions. As part of the experience I got to drive a 458 Italia round their Fiorano test track. A lot. Unlike my fellow Brit, Sam Burnett, I didn't collect half the traffic cones and have a dozen technicians standing around the car tutting.

Most of the time I drive a more sensible family car, a 53 plate Vauxhall Zafira in old person burgundy. What better way to judge Ferrari's latest and greatest then, with a head to head road test? I have been instructed to add that the Zafira (unlike the Ferrari) is actually my wifes car and that she very kindly allows me to chauffeur drive her around at the weekends.

Costs

I recently worked out if I put £1 away a day, it would take me just slightly in excess of 400 years to save the necessary funds to buy a Ferrari 458. In contrast, our second hand Zafira cost a shade under £4,000 with 34,000 miles on the clock. Running costs aren't too bad for the Zafira, it gets 40mpg, and at current prices, the last fill up with Shell V-Power cost me £65. The Ferrari on the other hand gets a shade over 20 miles to the gallon, so if you drive it hard, you'll have to plan your route via filling stations. 

I couldn't get a quote on the car insurance from Admiral for the Ferrari since their website kept on returning an unexpected error but I expect it would have given me the same sort of excellent value for money that we get with our Zafira, so on the insurance front I'll call it a draw.

Handling

The Ferrari can make it around any corner on any racing track in the world without a full turn of the steering wheel. I've got size twelve feet and I have shoes that are smaller than the Ferrari's brakes. My wellies are also smaller. The feedback through the steering wheel is astonishing considering the considerable number of driving aids available too, you get a really tactile sense of the road and how the car is thinking with it's clever little computer brain. In fact when you have all the traction aids on, it's nearly impossible to spin the 458 in the wet. I should know, I was on the skid pan for half an hour trying. 

The Zafira also has power steering and anti lock brakes. It certainly handles speed bumps better than the the Ferrari in as much as it can make it over them. Do satnav's come programmed with the ability to pick routes that don't have speed bumps? If they don't, then there's a marketing opportunity. I'm fairly sure the Zafira wont go round hairpins at 50mph like the Ferrari does thanks to its high centre of gravity, but it is a bit like driving a comfy sofa on the motorways. In fact my conviction is such, that I've decided not to try the high speed corning in the Zafira. If I turn, the car turns and it hasn't so far ended up on its roof. This is a good thing.

Practicality

The Ferrari has enough room for two adults to travel in comfort. I'm 6ft 4 and was completely comfortable behind the wheel. The boot is full of engine, a 4.5 litre 562BHP monster. Fortunately there is plenty of luggage space under the bonnet to fit your small holdall or a couple of carrier bags. Because the Ferrari does 0-60mph in 3.4 seconds, it can get you up to the speed limit about ten seconds faster than the Zafira, meaning you'll get to your destination ten seconds quicker. In the scheme of things, a lot of ten seconds mount up and you'll soon find yourself with an awful lot of spare time.

What the Zafira does well is transport your family, and with it's Flex-7 seating system, the boot can convert into an extra row of seats without too much aggravation, albeit at the sacrifice of boot space. You can transport three and a half times as many people as the Ferrari can, so for moving large groups of people its actually quicker- you only have to make the trip once.

Conclusion

So all in all for a family, the Zafira just about edges the Ferrari out. If you're off to the cinema with your kids, you'll have trouble getting there in the Ferrari and might as well take the bus. The Ferrari excels as a second car though and you'll guarantee your son will be the most popular kid at school if you turn up to pick him up in a Ferrari 458. If you don't have a son, your daughter will soon acquire a boyfriend.

Best thing is though, if you do decide to own both (and live in a shed), you wont get confused when it comes to filling them up- Shell V-Power Unleaded in the pair of them. Shell develop their F1 fuels with Ferrari and the Shell V-Power you can buy at the pump is the same Shell V-Power that is dispensed from the 3 Shell Filling stations at the Ferrari factory. Every Ferrari leaves the factory with a tank of V-Power. If it's good enough for a 562BHP 4.5 litre engine, it will do my humble Zafira. 

Hot MILF action at Cybermummy 11

I must win an award for the worlds latest Cybermummy post. I'm cool with that, I work to my own timetable and it's not as if it's about to clash with the next one is it?

I must firstly say thanks to Appliances Online for paying for my ticket, and for not making me go dressed up as a fridge freezer to pay them back. Within about 15 minutes of tweeting who wants to buck the trend and pay for a bloke to go to Cybermummy, I'd already been offered a ticket. Which was nice.

Logistically the day was a bit interesting because we had to dump the kids (2 and 4) at my mum's before heading up to London. We had to drop them off early enough so as to not miss the start of Cybermummy but late enough that they wouldn't have the kids for too long (they are in their 70's after all. My parents, not the kids, obviously). We therefore had to catch the 8.47 from Broxbourne which would get us into Liverpool Street at 9.15, leaving us 15 minutes to walk to the venue.

Things started off well as the pay and display machine at the station was broken. On closer examination it was blocked with two pounds coins (the machine didn't take them), so I was able to extract them with the special £2 coin extracting device on my Swiss Army knife. So far we were over a pound up on the day- result!

I've been part of the parent blogging community for a couple of years now and since I was fairly confident of being around a foot taller than every other attendee bar Tim I wasn't particularly nervous. As I said to some poor mum I cornered, I'm either the worlds most shy retiring type in the corner or the worlds worst boor. I don't think I was shy and retiring, so you'll have to accept my belated apology if I cornered you!

The breakout sessions were exceedingly hit and miss and on more than one occasion I found myself stuck at the front or back of a session I would have liked to have snuck out from. Most of the problems with the Wordpress session were IT related but after I was told off during the Q&A for answering a question the speaker couldn't (I thought the point of Q&A's were to answer the questions, not just tell people to look at FAQ's), I decided to get my revenge with a little bit of light hearted hacking. The session leader had used a dummy website to run through a few of the things she was talking about and I'd noticed she had simply cut and pasted her username into the password field, so decided to play a prank, the results of which you can see to the right. Gary, the Butlins redcoat from the MAD awards was happy to pose for the photo!
Otherwise, I think the best session involved Natalie Lue's talk on making money with your blog, although if I wore a hat I would definitely take it off to the chap from Wikio who was taking questions on marketing your blog/extending it's reach. Eventually, in a very Gallic fashion he got the slight hump and said, "How many times do I have to say it? You increase traffic to your blog by providing quality content." Amen brother!!

It was nice to catch up with old friends (Sally, Jen, Deborah, and loads of people I don't mean to offend by not mentioning) and meet people I've chatted to on twitter but never actually met. Fortunately only The Mummy Life has any incriminating photos of me. There were more chaps there than I anticipated too, although aside from a quick chin wag with Tim, I didn't get to talk to any of them.

I almost talked to Josie but she seemed very popular with everyone (understandable I suppose), so we just did the "do I know you" slight frown at each other from a distance and left it at that.

I did get to have a chat to Liane Katz, from the Guardian, who distilled the ten minutes of rambling I inflicted upon her to a couple of lines that made me sound wise in the article on the Guardian's website she penned about Cybermummy. If I was rich I'd hire her permanently to make me seem more intelligent (and intelligible) than I actually am.

We skipped town before the after show party to pick the kids up and get them home before murder was committed. Not before I'd won a Nintendo DS in the Disney Cars 2 time trial competition though. Hurrah!

I enjoyed myself and I think I would have enjoyed myself dramatically less if I'd paid over a hundred quid to go but then we've got an old fashioned view of money and are saving up hard for a new bathroom suite at the moment.

So, you're at the end of the post and you're still wondering about the hot MILF action aren't you? Well I went to Cybermummy with my lovely wife Claire who writes Being a Mummy. Definitely the only MILF I saw at Cybermummy!

'Wimmin

After a week of intermittent pool usage on holiday, the nippers were quite buoyed by the chance to go swimming at the weekend. Or "'wimmin" as Fifi calls it.  We booked them in at the local secondary school pool for a taster lesson. The boy had done some of a course of lessons last year but it wasn't entirely successful. Problems with the pool had cancelled half of them, so there wasn't a great continuity about it all.

The great thing about this place is they cover ages as young as two. We had to wait for the boy to turn 3 before we could take him, but I was in the pool with Fifi on Sunday and she's only two and a half. The kids spent the week leading up to their taster lesson bursting with excitement and then, when we got in the car, they spent the trip to the pool in tears. This was because it was a different pool and Fifi was only crying because the boy was.

Still, at the end of it Fifi was bursting with pride and the boy had successfully chatted up at least two bikini wearing instructors. The smooth operator...

Teaching children how to lose

I remember vividly playing Monopoly when I was still in primary school and losing badly. With tears streaming down my cheeks I ran up to my room to read a book while my mum, dad and little brother finished there game.

That wasn't my first lesson in losing of course but it was one that stuck with me since we tended to not play games as a family that often. When I was a little older I did play chess, Orthello and cribagge with my dad and won as many as I lost but without those earlier lessons in losing, I wouldn't have been very much fun to play.

The boy is four now, and has already had a few lessons in defeat. Primarily at games that aren't skill based, like Pop Up Pirate, where even if I wanted to (and I'm not sure I do), I can't let him win. There have been tears, shouting and upset but at the end he wants to play again. I don't think there is anything wrong with being competitive.

Back in 2005 some well meaning teacher caused a bit of a storm by suggesting that failure be replaced with deferred success, saying that some kids got depressed if they faced failure. To my mind, the deferred success route was wrong: the kids simply needed to be taught that to try and fail is acceptable.

no running, someone might
not be as fast as you!

Which brings me to the boys first sports day today, which someone on twitter told me sounded like a parent attended PE lesson. The kids were split into groups and went round a series of stations doing each activity repeatedly for 3 minutes until someone blew a whistle. They had fun but there were no obvious winners and consequently no obvious losers. Some might say that 4 is a little too young to get competitive but heaven knows I'm not the competitive sort. You can probably tell if you've read any of my blog over the last couple of years. I'm not the sort of competitive dad who in years to come will lamp the referee at junior football or anything.

Of course learning to be gracious in victory is as important as learning to be dignified in defeat, something that seems to have been missed in the drive to non competitive sports at schools.

And dammit, there wasn't a dads race :)